Hubris.co.nz

Let’s go with some bullet-points really quickly.

• For the past couple of months, I have been working at my new permanent job. It’s in the private sector, at a web company, and I’m their writer. There is cereal in the cupboard, and chocolate biscuits and many kinds of beer on Fridays. I am supposed to use Oxford commas in the work that I do for them, but they’re not the boss of my journal, so I can write whatever the hell kinds of lists that I like. Such as: the things I like about my job include my lovely manager, the jovial atmosphere in my team, the way the marketing girl and I have declared Friday afternoons to be Cheesy Music Time, I have a laptop and another screen, almost all my work can be done remotely if I needed, it’s in a good part of town and I love what I do. Oh yes, I am listing the superficial things, but oh my god, I get so much done! It is immensely satisfying to be able to write things and have them take effect that week – or sometimes that day. Fuck the public service, man. I’m still serving the public, but this way I’m actually effective.
• Having such a great job has been very beneficial to me because the last month has been absolute shitballfuckinghell. You know how the week before my period it always seems a little bit like the world is ending, even if I’m taking my lexapro and being good and all? Well my counsellor suggested last year that I should talk to my GP about talking to a gyno about going on The Pill to stop that, so in May, when I had to go in to see my GP for a Lexapro extension, I asked her to refer me to the public health system, which gave me an appointment with a gyno in OCTOBER. You’ll remember (or not) that my whole depression thing actually was kickstarted when I was 19 and went on Femulen for birth control, but of course, that’s a bit chicken-egg, because was it the drug or was it the circumstances around my relationship with Thomas that made me depressed? Etc. And then there were the MIGRAINES OF HEAD EXPLOSION DEATH when I was 22 and on Estelle35 to sort out my PCOS. So naturally I was hesitant. But after the very nice lady doctor had gone elbow deep in me (my cunt was all “what’s this? Who’s touching me? Am I supposed to enjoy this?” while her pushing on my stomach made it ache like I’d swallowed a gallon of semen or something), we thought that maybe Yaz could help me get the PMS under control. Turns out, not so much. I was on it for a month, and the entire time I wanted to cry every day and kill the world Oh, and I’ve had my period for 21 days now. Luckily now I am in the gyno system, I  could call up and talk to a nurse who had all my notes, and stop taking the pill on her advice, but I’m just so angry that I made myself feel so terrible for a whole month. Like seriously, if I didn’t have such a great manager and the ability to work from home, I don’t know how I could have dealt with it all. It was like a big reoccurance of depression again, except I could see how clearly it wasn’t actually based on anything in my life at all except for that fucking pill. Now I’m hoping it will get flushed out of my body ASAP. I have to go in again in January for another internal ultrasound, but I don’t know if I’m going to risk any pills again. The nurse rang me today to see if I needed another form of birth control, and I was all “no no, I’m a condom girl anyway”. How sweet of her to actually think I had an actual sex life. For the record, even though I have a super comfy brand new bed, I don’t. Actually,  my bed is so damn comfy I am never sharing it again.
• As well as a new bed, I have a new house ALL TO MYSELF in Mt Vic. It is glorious. I call it Casa Sans Hosen. I can’t spell. I have a spare room so you should come and stay, like Heather and like Kat & Kane. I’ll wear pants for you if you’d like, providing you give me enough notice.
• Clearly I have sucked at keeping this journal updated, but we don’t need to go over each and every thought I’ve had. But to sum things up, the Yaz has made me angry all over again about that married man, even though that’s coming up on two years. And I’ve been hanging out to Thomas again lately which is really nice because it is reassuring to know that there are people who will always know you and it’s nice to see the ways you’ve grown. And I saw Good Tom the other day which was lovely although the circumstances were horrible, and holy crap I miss the fuck out of that boy.
• I will update more often with more pithy updates, okay? Yes.

Every year I answer the same 40 questions to do a stocktake of where I’m at. Check out previous years here.

1. What did you do in 2009 that you’d never done before?

• Got made redundant
• Stayed overnight in hospital
• Lost items of value in a burglary
• Had my first threesome. And my second. And my third.
• Had an intern.
• Replied to someone on an internet dating site and then slept with them.
• Received over two grand’s worth of free stuff for being a blogger (the $1200 freeview box made up a lot of that)
• Went to Roller Derby
• Won a “Best Fan” prize
• Kissed 17 people in one night (hurray for kissing booths!)
• Had someone pay for me to get into a strip club, and also tucking money into strippers’ underwear for the first time
• Willingly (ish) went through a break-up.
• Had someone throwing me a surprise party.
• Worn red lipstick frequently and confidently.

2. Did you keep your new years’ resolutions, and will you make more for next year?

Apparently my resolutions for this year were about taking better care of myself, and although I did continue to sleep with the married man for a bit, we did indeed eventually break it off, so yay me. And then I resolved to never sleep with a married person again, which is a good resolution to have and I have yet to break it again. I also resolved to have breakfast with someone after we’d slept together, and while I thought I’d achieved that when I woke up with a boy for the first time since 2004, we didn’t actually have breakfast, unless you count helping ourselves to one another’s genitals again. Oh oh but actually, I did make wedges for a lady caller that we ate in bed together so I guess that counts.

My new resolution is to articulate myself better when I don’t like something, rather than just dealing with it. As in “please take your hand off my leg” instead of moving chairs, or “Actually I don’t like Hawaiiian Pizza” instead of just avoiding those slices. Etc.

3. Did anyone close to you give birth?

Fucking buttloads of people had babies this year! Specifically Martha and Brenda and my best friend Penny from high school. Still more of my friends are pregnant right now, and it’s all a little bit over the top, if you ask me. I can’t have breakfast with a boy and you all can get married and buy houses and have babies? Unfair!

4. Did anyone close to you die?

No, but people very close to people I am very close to did, and all I could do about it was text stupid jokes every day and send care packages of Noel Fielding.

5. What countries did you visit?

Sydney for FullCodePress (thanks to the lovely Tash Mahal) and Vanuatu for fun.

6. What would you like to have in 2010 that you lacked in 2009?
Breakfast with someone, obviously, since I can now cook eggs. Also, a job. And let’s say a proper public relationship where the person I am with shouts it from the rooftops.

7. What date from 2009 will remain etched upon your memory, and why?
The Wellingtonista Awards again because of the work and the memories that I was a bit scared of. December 10 because it was my ten year anniversary of fucking. July 17 for my ten years of Hubris party and because it was when I relaunched this site in WordPress. June 30 for being my last day at the SSC.

8. What was your biggest achievement of the year?
Honestly, I had a motherfucking buttload of bad shit happen to me this year, and so the fact that I’m still in good spirits, that I’m happy, sort of healthy and am able to keep going on, and that I’ve ended the year with all my friendships intact and even with new friends is pretty fucking awesome. Go me!

9. What was your biggest failure?

Honestly, I’m shocked that I don’t have another job yet. I know that I am hireable, that I have many skills and talents and the fact that I’m still unemployed is really weird. I’m also disppointed that I’m not as over someone as I’d like to be, but that’s not something you can force and you definitely can’t get over someone by being under as many people as possible. I’ve learnt my lesson on that front quite a few times this year.

10. Did you suffer illness or injury?
Depression as per usual, some nasty flus, withdrawl from zopiclone when I finally came off them, and also hospitalisation after an ingrown hair gave me cellulitis. But apart from that, no!

11. What was the best thing you bought?
My laptop(s) that allow me to download and watch copious amounts of television. Also every present that I’ve bought for others that has allowed me to demonstrate even the smallest fraction of how much I care about them.

12. Whose behavior merited celebration?

My family who have continued to lend me money and buy me things like a new laptop after mine got stolen and I didn’t have insurance, who paid my power bill for me so I wouldn’t get disconnected and who aren’t demanding that I pay them back for our trip to Vanuatu. Also everyone this year who’s bought me a drink or a meal in exchange for my company, especially Tom, who is insanely generous. My friends who’ve helped me out of emotional jams, listened to me bitching and moaning and kept me company through the long dark winter, Smoo whose quiet presence in the house is always welcome, and everyone who gave me orgasms this year and fucked me til my thighs ached.

13. Whose behavior made you appalled and depressed?

Management at SSC and everyone else who didn’t hire me, people who think that hitting kids is okay, the cunt who burgled us, and anyone who has treated my friends badly.

14. Where did most of your money go?
Double rents and unemployment.

15. What did you get really, really, really excited about?

Roller derby! Kat & Kane’s wedding! Harvestbird & Knedd’s wedding! People having babies!

16. What song will always remind you of 2009?

‘So here we are’ by Bloc Party becasue it played while I was lying in my lover’s arms for what we thought was the last time, and so that he wouldn’t see me crying I buried my face in his neck and we fucked because it fit the narrative structure that way. And also ‘Some time around Midnight’ by the Airbourne Toxic Event, even though or actually because as Good Tom says there’s far too much pathos in it for one song. It’s like the story of my life condensed down into four minutes. Oh and because it was so recent, ‘Halo’ is standing out in my mind right now too.

17. Compared to this time last year, are you:
i. happier or sadder? Happier, despite all the crap. I am getting better at dealing with everything.
ii. smaller or larger? Larger, by a lot probably.
iii. richer or poorer? Much much poorer.

18. What do you wish you’d done more of?
Physical activies and community service. Also, I wish I’d put more work into You Are So Entertaing but I still can!

19. What do you wish you’d done less of?
Wasting time on Twitter and Spider Solitaire and watching crappy television. Passive-aggressive texting and emailing. I sent some spectacularly nasty drunken emails this year and I am very not proud of them. My defense of being desperate for any kind of reaction is not good enough.

20. How will you be spending Christmas?

My parents and Karen came over to my house and were joined by Bad Tom and Shirley and I cooked amazing food and we gorged ourselves and had a thoroughly pleasant time of it.

21. Who did you spend the most time on the phone with?
WINZ. Heather and Kat <3.

22. Did you fall in love in 2009?

I didn’t fall, I stayed in.

23. How many one-night stands?

Three? In terms of one-offs, there was a girl, there was Tingle and there was the guy from Internet dating. I did see the girl again though, but only in a friend capacity. In addition, there were multiple occasions with the married man, the duck and the crazy girl. Oh, and I had intended to have a playdate with the boy who’d watched me and the crazy girl in his hotel room, whose kiss made me a little weak at the knees, but despite some textage, the stars didn’t align. Which is probably for the best.

24. What was your favorite TV program?
Mad Men, Community, 30 Rock, Dollhouse (!!!!!)

25. Do you hate anyone now that you didn’t hate this time last year?

Nope.

26. What was the best book you read?

Oh god, have I actually done any reading this year? I liked Generation A but not nearly as much as Generation X. I don’t think I can remember any other books, really, which I know is pretty terrible. Don’t tell Karen okay?

27. What was your greatest musical discovery?

Umm, getting a subscription to Last.FM? And taking all the contents of Emma and Lisa’s hard drives?

28. What did you want and get?

A laptop. To wake up in someone’s arms. Lots and lots of pashes. Amazing collections of friends. An overseas tropical holiday and some weekend jaunts other places. To get on the dole and be left mostly alone (well, I’d rather I didn’t have to, but it was a struggle to get here anyway). The ability to sleep without zopiclone.

29. What did you want and not get?

An invitation to Foo Camp – I worked really hard to prove myself this year hoping to get one and I didn’t. Sad face. Also, a new job, and at the time of writing, a full house. Paying extra rent is killing me. A real relationship. An ONYA nomination.

30. What was your favorite film of this year?

I’m not sure what movies I actually went to this year. There weren’t very many of them, that’s for sure.

31. What did you do on your birthday, and how old were you?

On my actual birthday I got free coffee from Green Land, I went to work, then I went to the Backbencher for someone’s goodbye drinks. I was feeling nauseous so I only drank gin. Then with my family I went to Elements for dinner which was amazing. Prior to that, my amazing sisters threw me a freak show surprise party! It was amaaaaaaaaaaaazing! I turned 29, which means I’m almost 30 now. Crikey!

32. What one thing would have made your year immeasurably more satisfying?

Finding a new job shortly after being made redundant with a bit of time for a holiday in between.

33. How would you describe your personal fashion concept in 2009?

I’ve got really into the Fatshionista community and started posting outfits of the day before my camera got stolen. I’m still trying to be Joan Holloway. I’ve also started wearing red lipstick, thanks to the lovely Megan.

34. What kept you sane?
My amazing counsellor, my family’s love and financial support and my fantastic friends.

35. Which celebrity/public figure did you fancy the most?

Noel Fielding? Jon Stewart still makes me moist. As does ummm oh I don’t know. People? Stuff? Things? Tom Coates and that other guy from Webstock. Matt Bidulp? I can’t remember. Oh! And Victor from Dollhouse.

36. What political issue stirred you the most?

Ridiculous bullshit redundancies, strangely enough. Oh yeah, ICT’s totally not going to be a growth area…

37. Who did you miss?

The secret relationship. All my friends who are in other cities, especially Heather and Kat’n Kane. Really angry I missed out on meeting Ghetsum again cos I was too sick. And Good Tom, who shouldn’t have left to go to America, fucker.

38. Who was the best new person you met?
Oh my gosh, I met so many awesome people this year, like Kim and Laura and Amie through Twitter, Chiara and Theresa and Julie through Pretty Pretty Pretty and also my new flatmate Thigh Voltage and through her the derby girls. Also, I’d already met Megan before but I feel like we became really good friends this year and that’s always worth celebrating.

39. Tell us a valuable life lesson you learned in 2009:
The people that care about you want to be there for you. You just need to learn to ask for help.

40. Quote a song lyric that sums up your year:
“I get by with a little help from my friends”.

It turns out that I can throw a pretty good shindig. The Fourth Annual Wellingtonista Awards were last night, and it was a fantastic time. I’m so proud of all the work that I and others have put into that site, and it’s paid off in bucketfuls. I’ll no doubt do a proper post about it over on that site, and round up pics and stuff like that, but suffice to say, oh my, so much love. It was fantastic to have lots of people who were nominated actually turn up, it was great to have Sally from Mighty Mighty to accept their billion awards that they won, and to have Shirley up on stage to accept for her identical twin Ev from Slowboat, to get to talk to James about how far we’ve come since the site started, to see Jessie again, to have Tom prove yet again what a gentleman he really is by keeping me in drinks when I thought I lost my eftpos card, to get to swap meaningful looks and sideways smiles with someone and have that be cool, to dance with Chiara and Theresa and Julie in pseudo-Russian style to the Klezmer Rebs, to see Sue actually about, to have so many friends there that I didn’t get a chance to talk to any of them properly, to have Tash be all humbled by their winning and her not being there to accept it on time, to dance to the awesome Karaoke Dick afterwards and sing sing sing, to having Kim show up really late and be all drunken “YAY KIM!!!!” at her, to have Grant Robertson (and everyone else) tell me how fabulous I looked…. oh, how I do so love me a good spotlight bask. Oh, and then there’s that other thing.

I’ve had bad experiences in the past where I’ve written about crushes and had the crushee email me going “um, I’m not interested in you romantically” and I’ve been like, yeah duh, I just wanted to write about how nice it is to have a crush that’s pure and simple and joyous, it’s not really about you or whatever, but on the other hand all too often I only write about things when they’re spent and used up and I’m all angsty about them, so in the interests of being Fair and Balanced like Fox News, I figure I will tell you a tale about last night at the TAWAs.

There was a girl there who it turned out I’d met almost ten years ago and I found myself really drawn to her immediately. It helped that she piled me with compliments, of course, and that it turns out that we’re eskimo sisters although our mileage definitely varied. At one stage I even sent Laura on a recon mission to find her, and in a move straight out of primary school Laura told her that I had a crush on her. Which is fine because we kissed as someone took up the mic singing ‘Halo’ and I have all kinds of love for that song, and it felt like I was on a show on the WB, and it was lovely, and it was public and not a shameful dirty secret. Also lovely was duetting on ‘Blister In the Sun’, dancing together and kissing right in the middle of Cuba Mall at 3am. She wouldn’t let me take her home because she said that shagging gets in the way of being friends, and I was like “but dude, I have a million friends already! I don’t need any more!” but of course she is no doubt right. I’m just very lucky that I got to have a thoroughly swell time and a kiss to make the night perfect. It was partly a little bit about chasing away the ghosts of last year and the thing that I am not supposed to remember any more, but it was so sweet that it felt fresh and clean and not at all like the other times this year when I have tried to drown my memories in someone else’s arms. Excellent. Thank you very much, you charming young lady.

Because I’m trying to get everything tagged and tucked away and imaged and stuff here on Hubris, I have been reading through many many many entries, and woah, I sure have a lot of angst, don’t I?

I don’t, so much anymore, or at least not all that much today. It is nice to start your day with lunch at the Med Warehouse with Megan, and gossip your hearts out, and then to cruise the aisles looking at tasty things you want to eat, and then do the supermarket shopping, buy healthy vegetables and stuff and make huge big pots of dhal. It is also nice to have a Lisa Fur visit you and to watch Flash Dance together and sing along and twitter incessantly about Sassy Black Friends.

This unemployment thing is handy in that now I am coming off the zopiclone I am not sleeping at night at all so I am sleeping all day, but trying to be financially responsible means that my going out is severely curtailed. That is probably for the best, I suppose, because I am running out of people to drunk text. Getting cease & desist emails was a good thing, and the reaction that I had been pushing for.

Being home during the day means more amusing conversations with Smoo, and also being beaten by him at both Wii Tennis, despite my Williams-y grunting, and at bowling although I’m normally good at it, but beating him at Wii Baseball. It also means that I get to spend more time with Sebastian:

It sadly does mean that I’m churning through bandwidth at alarming rates, although I’m defaulting to simple things, rereading Harry Potter (I have lust for young boys, who knew?) and rewatching Angel.

I’m excited that I get to attend the cheese celebrations of Miss Harvestbird in October, and I’ve booked my flight on airpoints. Nothing good ever seems to happen to me in Christchurch (sorry Good Tom), but perhaps three times is a charm.

Last Tuesday I was on the bus home, and I was texting Kat saying “I hate everyone in the whole world. Except for you” because I was having a really horrible shitter of a week/month/year, and all I wanted was someone’s shoulder to cry on. Then when I was stumbling down my street trying not to cry, I suddenly thought “Well, why the fuck don’t I just go visit her?” and decided that if I could get flights for under $500, I would. A quick flick through the Air NZ site and a text to confirm that she was free for the weekend later, I found myself with flights booked for Friday-Sunday, and as she told me that they live in a bedsit, I searched wotif.com for a hotel, and then ended up making a booking straight through the Hotel On Devonport site as it was cheaper – $130+gst for a deluxe room. Plus, they emailed me back almost instantaneously saying that they saw I requested a 10am check-in, to let me know that if my room wasn’t ready at that stage I could still park and leave my suitcase there. Very impressed with that.

That made the rest of the week a little more dealable-with-able, along with sending a series of “this is why I am angry with you” emails to a series of people. And so on Friday morning I found myself up before 7am, with the shuttle picking me up at 7.20am. Golly gee, that was an early morning. Air NZ has gone all super high tech at the airport, where you check yourself in at a kiosk, print your own sticker for your bag, and just biff it on the conveyor-belt yourself. At this stage I would like to mention that the Caltex in the Newtown shops still sends an attendant out to pump your gas for you. What is happening to service in the rest of the world? Won’t someone please think of the children? Anyways. I had heaps of time so I got a coffee from Fuel and read the paper, but if I’d known that they wouldn’t give me a stamp for the coffee, I would have gone to Wishbone.

The flight itself was uneventful, and touching down in Tauranga was pretty. As soon as my taxi driver found out that I’d never been to Tauranga before, he proceeded to narrate everything, which is what I hoped for. He gave me so much information that I was constantly able to pull it out over the weekend and impress Kat & Kane, or at least make them start calling the taxi driver my boyfriend. He answered my questions about how much a taxi to the Mount would be, pointed out where the buses went from, explained that the Strand went off on Saturday nights (his words) and lifted my suitcase out of the car for me. The reception staff at the hotel were just as friendly and nice, finding me a room that was available then rather than making me wait, and asking when I’d like my complimentary drink delivered. My room on the fifth floor was absolutely lovely:

However, I couldn’t make the lights go. And yes, I saw the large plastic key thing that you’re suppose to slide into the switch, but it wouldn’t go in. I rang reception, and told them, so they sent someone up, who couldn’t make it go either because there was something jammed in the hole. They found housekeeping who unjammed it, but the lights still didn’t go on and they blamed a broken fuse. Five minutes later, I had electricity, and they checked to make sure. Hurrah! Kat wasn’t due to finish work until 2pm, so I decided to venture out and find myself some brunch.

Devonport St is the main shopping street in Tauranga, apparently, so there were lots of places around. There were also lots of vacant shops, but mostly it was a pleasant little high street full of chain stores. A block over and down I found a little plaza area, and decided to eat at Bravo because they had lots of sunny outdoor tables. I had mushrooms on toast with super crispy bacon and enjoyed the sunshine. I found the city art gallery and marvelled at the collection of NZ paintings that BNZ bought during 1982-1987 before they went bankcrupt or whatever, and talked to the attendant about how patronage of the arts will no doubt suffer in this current R-Word climate. After that, I strolled around a bit more before heading back to the hotel for a lovely nap on the huge big bed. Even Damian Christie recommends the hotel, and that says a lot.

Then it was KAT TIME! She came to meet me at the hotel and I hugged her so hard I almost went all Mice & Men on her. I offered to buy her a pedicure, so we went off in search of a place that would take us. The first place we tried right across the road was busy, but the second one we found (there are nail salons EVERYWHERE in Tauranga, it’s a little weird) the woman said she could do us both at once. Oooer. So we clambered up into the massaging chairs and soaked our feet while she slid back and forth between us. I know we didn’t have appointments, but she was really rushed because as we discovered she had another client coming in, and I just don’t think we got a very good deal. I was really disappointed that we didn’t get the dead skin razored off our feet, or any kind of massage (in fact, she only rubbed lotion into one of my feet!) and the nail polish job was patchy, and since my toenails are unnaturally thick, I always put polish on their edge, but she didn’t. For $48 each, I thought it was seriously lacking (although looking at their site now, what they list is what we got). Still, I bought some bright yellow nail polish as well, and it was relaxing to have the soak and the electric massage, and that’s what I was after. Perhaps I was spoiled by my only other pedicure experience in New York. And in fact, looking at prices of other places on the net right now, maybe that’s pretty standard or actually fairly cheap. Ahh well.

Then we headed to a convenience store for snacks and a bottle of wine, and sat out on my sunny balconey until it got too hot and then we flopped all over my bed. We booked dinner at Cafe Versaillies for 8.30pm so we could watch NZNTM first, and Kane came and joined us in my hotel room for television watching, napping, and making sex-faces on the big suede headboard to confuse the housekeeping staff:

Eventually though, we were so hungry that we decided to change our booking to 7.15pm. We were seated in a corner that if we’d been on a date we could have had butterfly-adorned curtains pulled around us.The very French man at the restaurant was very accomodating, even though we felt obliged to try and thank him in French, which made me want to speak Japanese, as that’s my default “not English” language, and Kat was the same with Spanish. I tried very very hard not to make any “aw haw haw Baugutte!” exclamations, which was hard, because I was very very giggling, and also our napkins were arranged thusly:

And how can you fight that? Especially if you’re a cheese-eating surrender monkey. YOU CAN’T! It’s NOT POSSIBLE! So instead we surrendered to the duck in orange sauce and eclairs with incredibly intense chocolate sauce, and some beajolais and potato gratin. What did the French person say when they’d eaten a lot of amazingly delicious food, including eggs in Kat & Kane’s chocolate mousse? I’ve had an oueff!

After that we adjorned to my hotel for more lol-ing and lolling around on my big bed before they finally went home, with plans to pick me up at 10am the next day. I slept fantastically, the double-glazed doors keeping out the sound of street hooliganism that I expected but never saw. If I could change one thing about the hotel though, it would be that they didn’t have aloe vera-flavoured moisturiser because I don’t like aloe vera scent. But that’s just me being super picky. I should have remembered to pack my own lotion.

So yes, anyway, Saturday. They picked me up and we went to Grindz on First Avenue for breakfast after we flagged walking up to Fifth for some sort of market. They said that the staff at Grindz can have bad attitudes, but my french toast and coffee were great, even if the toast was more eggy than I personally prefer. Plus I love that Grindz has a whole dedicated playroom for kids to keep them out of my ears. We did some shop-browsing, then jumped on a bus over to the Mount. Kane wanted to go to a particular op shop, so we went to the “bad” part of the Mt Manganui shops. It all seemed a bit sad and shut down. I tried on a thousand pairs of sunglasses, but I still can’t find any I like as much as the glasses I wear these days which I’ve had since 1999 (May 1, 1999 to be exact! Which was also the first day I told someone to their face that I loved them is how I know that for a fact) and they’re all scratched up to hell. Eventually we got to go and plonk our asses down on the beach and watch a family learn to surf. I couldn’t help but cheer every time any of them caught a wave, especially the 10 year old girl. Kat also made me laugh and cheer and clap by performing the chicken dance from Arrested Development for me and also for Lisa, except that it was too high-res to mms to her. But here it is for you. Turn your head!

And if that video doesn’t make you happy, then you are officially (OFFICIALLY!) the lamest person on the face of the planet. Now, when I twitted that I was going to Tauranga, I asked people what I should do. Almost everyone who replied told me I should go for a walk up the Mount. Here is a picture of the Mount.

I don’t walk up shit like that. In fact, I was already starting to develop a blister, as well as having one on the back of my heel still from my stupid new shoes, and my arms were banged up from walking into a pole. So it was nice to sit on the beach and chill for a while, but eventually I declared that I needed scheduled relaxing free time, and we made a plan to go and get a bite to eat. I picked Slow Fish at random, and it turned out to be a very clever thing to do, because the haloumi that came with my greek salad was the best haloumi I have ever ever eaten. Because I feel bad for you because you didn’t get to share my haloumi, here is a bonus picture of a tree with big bouncy branches that we rode like ponies:

Then we went to the Hot Pools. Because I mysteriously found myself in possession of a Tauranga library card, I got in for $6, but it would have been worth the outsider rate of $14. We sat in the passive pool for a while because it had a shade sail over it, and I impressed K&K with my sign-reading-and-retention knowledge by telling them that it was called the passive pool, and that it was 35 degrees. Then we switched over to the active pool in the sun, but it was a much cooler-feeling 33 degrees, and so we were more active. We did interpretive water dances about our jobs. Apparently my job involves me typing with my toes. The salt water made me super extra buoyant. I couldn’t help but float, so I impressed them with my abilty to float with my legs crossed. My sunglasses are so big Kane could wear them happily over his glasses, but they did get salty. We finished with a soak in the spa pools (38 degrees) and then went across the street for Copenhagen ice cream. I discovered that a Black Cow Soda Shake is made with coke and chocolate ice cream, but since I’d already had coffee and a coke my heartrate was being a bit racy (like a Victorian lady showing off her ankles!) so I settled for a lemonade & chocolate concoction. It was weird and tasty but I don’t think I’d want to have one every day.

Back at the hotel (my room was apparently aproximately the size of their house) there was more napping (I LOVE napping with people, I could totally be friends with Bret and Jermaine) and many episodes of The Simpsons before we strolled off to the fish dock for dinner.

It’s very nice eating 100 metres from where the fish comes in. People in the know bring along their own picnic sets and booze, but we just ate out of the paper. The fish was amazing, so fresh and crispy and yum. It made me a very happy Jo to be sitting with two of my favouritest people watching the sun set. Kat says that one of the reasons that i like them so much is that they don’t make me do anything, that we can just be still in each other’s company and not have to be rushing around doing anything, and maybe that’s true, and we proved it when we went back to my hotel to watch Grand Designs and Richard E Grant being awesome in Miss Marple. We giggled with glee a lot and told stupid jokes and just generally had an amazing time, and then they left and I was a bit sad. So I changed the time on my cellphone for daylight savings ending, and then I went to sleep.

When I woke up to my alarm, I looked at the time on the alarm clock that I’d also adjusted, and realised that MOTHERFUCKING SON OF A BITCH my cellphone had ALSO changed its time, and there was 25 minutes until my plane left. I grabbed all of my shit and rang a cab and dropped off my key. After waiting ten minutes for my taxi to show up, the driver tried calling the airport for me, but the flight was already gone. At the airport they offered to put me on the next flight to Auckland, but it was only going to save me $20 or so and I would have had to wait around there too, so I decided that I’d just take the next flight to Wellington – at a cost of $370 extra. I waved my arms in pretendish-fiero when I found out that at least I’d get air points for that flight so that I wouldn’t cry. I took my complimentary Herald On Sunday to a picnic table outside and waited three hours for my flight, really regretting not having taken the time to call the airport before leaving the hotel so that I could have showered and had a decent coffee and breakfast in town. Sigh. And then the fucking shuttle in Wellington went all the way around Oriental Bay and then back into Newtown while I sat there fuming and just wanting to be home and clean and with my kitty. Grrr. Bad way to end a holiday but oh man, it was a glorious time, so chilled out, relaxed and pampery. It was exactly what I needed and the perfect time to have it too. I will go back.

---

Other things in very very brief format that I have been up to: getting better at Hottest Dance Party Ever! on the wii, even though my knees might disagree / organising the Pretty Pretty Pretty First Birthday Party for April 18 (come along!) / discovering that me and much of my team are being made redundant at work / stressing out about Sebastian when he got a big nasty abcess and was in a lot of hurt at the vet’s / freaking out my new GP with all kinds of crazy questions and cut-up arm from falling against the evil wall outside the National Library while she was giving me a smear / trying to figure out ways to expand my circle of friends because I’ve been having Wellington claustrophobia because everyone has slept with everyone and it’s kind of stressful keeping it all in balance / having a million kinds of difficulty getting ahold of my shrink before and after my prescriptions ran out / making the married man sit at the back of a cafe and watch me cry for 45 minutes just to be sure that it registers with him how much I’m hurting but neglecting to ask the things I wanted to ask / buying a new laptop and becoming obsessed with season two of Gossip Girl / being perplexed by people who have different values than mine to the point where I was going to call my journal entry “My cunt: who’s in it and who’s not” before I went to Tauranga, and it would have gone into more detail about my smear and no one really wants to read that do they? / going to the most fantastic Steam Punk party ever where everyone was dressed up, there was a whole ballroom and a Klemzer band playing and pashing the woman that I pashed at Kowhai’s party last year again / I think that’ll do for now.

Here’s a story I didn’t tell you about Saturday night. Except that in order to tell it, I have to go back a couple of months. So, we’re in the time machine, right? Cool. And so now I’m lying in bed, and it’s like 3am or something, and I get a text message going “Hey Jo, if you hear a loud banging noise, it’s because I’m locked in the toilet and am trying to find a solution” from Smoo. So I got up to see if I could help him, and let him in the back door (if you know what I mean) and then we took off the lock with a screwdriver, and he kicked it open, yelling “L.A.P.D!” as he did it. Awesome. We still had the locking latch, so we were perfectly fine without the doorknob.

However, when we had a flat inspection, I thought I would mention the story of the doorknob and so I got an email or some kind of message from the landlady saying she’d talk to the owners about it. Then nothing happened, and we were like, oh well no biggie. Then, about a week or so ago – maybe two – I got a call from some repairmanguy who said that he was going to come over and fix the doorknob. He showed up late, and had a friend, and they hummed and harred for a long time, then went away. When they came back, it took the two of them like an hour or maybe more – I don’t know, my bladder was hurting – to put the knob on, and then they went away. The new knob had a twisty lock on it as well, but it did seem to be a little bit loose, Oh well, a knob’s a knob, right?

Then on Saturday, after I was exhausted from Strip Club antics the night before, and much much waiting around for the Cuba Street Carnival, I came home totally exhausted with Lisa. I took my sleeping pills and after we watched Skins, she left. I mention this because I was going to pee while she waited for her taxi, but decided to just chat to her instead. Anyways, so she left, and I went to the toilet, read some of the new Idealog and did my business. Then I went to open the toilet door. It was locked. Hmm, odd, I locked the latch but not the twirly bit, right? So I twirled it, and it still didn’t open. I wriggled it, and jiggled it, and it still didn’t open. WHAT THE FUCK?

Oh, did I mention the part where noone was home? Where El and Smoo were both in Australia (apparently not together, but where’s the rumour-starting fun in that?) and that George was out, and frequently is out until like 4am and this was only about midnight? So strangely enough, banging on the door with my fists didn’t help much. I thought about climbing out the window, but peering out into the spiderwebs and the drop and the long bushes and stuff, I luckily remembered that there were no windows open in the house, or any chance of getting them open. I contemplated jumping out anyway and breaking into the Tiki Shack to sleep there, but really, that mattress is for getting lei’d on, not for sleeping on, and plus, I was so tired, I just wanted my own bed so much. So, what to do?

With a lot of wriggling, I managed to get the screws on the knob a little bit loose, and then using the zipper on my hoodie as a screwdriver, I managed to pull them out, but of course the knob on the other side of the door fell off before I could grab its axle. Fucking buggity bugger. I banged on the door some more, and thought about crying, but instead I fastened Ze Frank’s song to combat anxiety in my head, and tried to think logically. I pulled the toilet roll holder apart, and tried to jam its point in the axle-hole and to make it click around, but it wouldn’t fit properly, partly because of the other end, which scratched a circle around it like a compass. I’m very good with these intense mechanical descriptions, right?

Because the guys who’d installed the doorknob had done such a bad job, and because the door is thin-ish plywoodish stuff, I realised that there were broken bits around the hole in which the knob should be, and through those broken bits, I could see the latchy mechanism. I decided that I needed to get in at that mechanism, even if it meant tearing the door apart, so I started hammering away at the hole with the side of the knob that I had left. I kept doing that for a while before I started alternating it with levering the toilet roll spoke into the hole, and breaking bits off. It was a long, long long slow process, and I was cold and tired and about to fall asleep from the zopiclone. Eventually though, my combined hammering and levering had broken off enough plywood to expose the latching system, and I tried fiddling with that for a bit before I realised that it was totally fucked, I had to lever bits of that off as well, metal bending before my awesome might. Fuck I am glad that our toilet roll holder wasn’t made of plastic! Shoving my fingers into the hole, I managed to find a tiny littlle trigger, and with an amazing CLICK, I was free. OMG OMG OMG! Checking Twitter, I saw that I’d been in there for a whole hour. Not how I wanted to end my night at all!

Turns out that George didn’t get home until 5am, so I’m very glad that I got all Mcguyver all up in it, and released myself. It makes me kinda proud at my resourcefulness, even. When George came home, he saw something was up with the lock, and so he tried shutting it – and locked himself out. He raced to get up in the morning to open the door when I got up to pee, and climbed in the window for me, and I pointed out where the trigger was. The latch is now duct-taped open (or shut) so that these incidences can’t happen again, although I have yet to email the landlady and tell her what muppets the “handy”men were. I really should do that now, eh?

Also on a mac note: I made lots of mac’n cheese yesterday, and then beat Good Tom at Trivial Pursuit. That part’s not so related, but I like to boast. In other success stories, I found a new flatmate as well, and also rang up Philips to ask them where I could buy a new remote contrl for my stupid DVR, and they’re apparently sending me a new one, and aren’t charging me for it. HURRAH! If only I’d asked for one a year ago, how many broken nails would I have avoided? And also, I made cupcakes for all the lovely people who organised Webstock and they liked them and that makes me happy. And I think that’s about it, for now,

xojo

PS: the title of this post would be much more awesomer if my last name was ‘Macleod’. But that’s okay.

1. As expected, Webstock blew my fucking mind. I cried on Day One when Ze Frank spoke and then I cried on Day Two when Tash wrapped it up. I had many free coffees, and tubs of ice cream. I ate friands until they came out of my ears, sort of and thoroughly enjoyed the rest of the catering too. I had a thousand glasses of champagne. I met a million people, I told half a million of them that I loved them, and I learned so many awesome things. Yes, I am talking here about the food and not the knowledge, because there were so many things that I will be talking about in the weeks to come that I think it’s okay to take a little bit of time to talk about coriander chicken noodles, and the blue-cheese filo cups at the Embassy, yes?

2. At the afterparty at the Embassy, we played Crowd Bingo. I won the most challenges I think, but I was still somewhat surprised when Kowhai jumped on my back. I made Alan listen to a thousand long stories about how everything is connected and revolves around me (the guy who won my dinosaur is I think the younger brother of the first guy that I ever said “I love you” to, albeit in a Tori Amos & Cindy Sherman-quoting email sent on Valentine’s Day in 1998. The younger brother didn’t like me at all based on IRC, because I laughed “ha ha ha” and he thought that made me really sarcastic. There were more of these types of story. Some of them involved diabetes. I’m surprised Alan put up with it all. Hadyn tried to take credit for my Crowd Bingos so I punched him. He twittered that I’d found Jim. People with iPhones all have herpes. Perhaps the greatest achievement in the bingo was Kowhai getting Ze to sign a card for Miss Fur, but we will come to that later, probably.

3. I told pretty much everyone that I loved them, although I’d already been twittering that all day. I told Matt Jones that I was going to marry him instead of Tom Coates. Sarah and I had it all worked out between us. We’re going to wear kaftans and and play majong. It’ll be brilliant. I made people hold my glass so I could hug people with two arms. I must in particular throw out mad love for Jeff who I hung out with for much of the night, and also for anyone who didn’t run in terror from me despite the booze and the enthusiasm I had flowing out of me like river about to burst its banks. I suspect also that my cleavage was more than terrifying, because it was a new dress (Yup! Sweaty and gross and it got worse at Vintage).

4. Vintage was hot and sweaty, but I found myself a seat and taught people how to play Front/Back. It’s a bit similar to Marry/Fuck/Kill, but simpler – you name two people, and someone has to decide which person they’d have fuck them in the ass and who they’d go down on. The first time Lisa and I played, it was Mike Patton vs Eddie Vedder. I decided I wanted Eddie to make sweet tender love to my heini, and Mike Patton to fuck my mouth as dirtily as possible. It’s a beautiful game. The funnest part was on Saturday when I asked Dylan “Good Tom/Bad Tom?” and he was too embarrassed to answer. I met some very amusing boys from Auckland and they indulged me in playing for a long time, talked to me about Marcus Lush and Newsnight and just generally kept me entertained, until they had to leave. I managed to find other friends though.

5. Me and a lady friend and two guys found ourselves with nowhere to drink after Vintage closed, so we went to Mermaids strip club. The guys paid for our entrance fee, bought us drinks and gave us laminated mermaid dollars to tuck in the thongs of the dancers. Yeah that was me, smashing the patriarchy. I talked to one of the dancers for a while, as it appeared to be her job. She didn’t take her top off and looked down on the dancers who do. I thought that was a bit weird. I couldn’t stop looking at things through a feminist window. The white bits on my dress glowed and I felt like it was 1997 and I was at a rave. She had a really nice ass, even if I’m not an ass girl, but I really wanted to see the redhaired stripper come out again. I had been drinking for 12 hours. I woke up the next afternoon and all the lights in my room were on.

6. Somehow I managed to make it out to the Cuba Street Carnivale, three colours of eyeshadow on and plastic flowers woven into my hair, It was so lovely to see Dylan again, and I love the people cheering for the wind blowing the bunting around. I don’t like Olmecha Supreme so we went and had cocktails at SFBH because sitting down is nice,and then went and watched the parade from Marion Street. It was pretty average, but there were some scantily clad ladies to oggle, which is always nice, because obviously I haven’t done enough of that lately. And then when we were waiting at the bus stop for a taxi, a guy ran past with a bagguette tucked under his arm so we were all “ahurhur hur hur” like a Frenchie.

7. Yesterday I had brunch ostentainably by myself, but Hadyn happened by, and then I saw Dylan too, and then I went and hung out with Lisa for a bit, who was still VERY VERY EXCITED that she got to meet Ze Frank at the carnival, and then there was an attempt at a nap but I was so excited that I’d get to nap that I couldn’t sleep.

8. Today I couldn’t face work, but I did three loads of washing, tidied the house, cleaned the bathroom, made cupcakes and delivered them to the lovely Mike & Deb and Tash & Ben to thank them for the awesomeness that is Webstock. The cupcakes are in boxes decorated in glitter goop that’s all smeary and dreadful but I’m hoping that they’ll thin it’s Outsider Art.

9. I am so excited about all the knowledge in my head, and I hope that it means that this year is going to be awesome. I fell from grace so hard in 2008, in so many ways. I hope I can regain some of that long lost grace. That is all.

10. Oh hai! If I met you, and you liked me, please let me a comment and we can like, hang out or something.

Yesterday I sent out a twit saying “Oh man, I cheated on Jane & Paul this morning and my punishment was a latte made with trim and a very blah scone. I’m so sorry! #whitewhines”, and that clearly demonstrates both my crime (in my defense, the scone came from the cafe in the Dom Post building where I having my photo taken, all zoomed in on my hands like L** S*** except I didn’t have dirt under my fingernails and the focus was on my sugar scrub instead of my open vagina and I did it for Kimberley instead of NZ Idol). Anyways, today I told them about my infidelity and they still made me the most awesome coffee ever, and I got to have a roast vege sandwich with feta, even though I had to run off to a depressing meeting about the economy while I still eating, but then I had lunch at Cellar-Vate and their dip had salmon in it which I hate, and meanwhile Green Land was giving out rum. So the punishment lingers.

Also yesterday I was twittering about how I was wearing my “I love Helen” badge that Bad Tom gave me for Christmas (hey, so it turns out that public servants are actually allowed to have their own thoughts and opinions! Who knew?) but as punishment from the gods, I was working on a comms plan and I had to emphasize the value for money and the outputs for the public in it. As my (life-long public servant) father had said right after the election and I’d been missing work to stay at home and cry “awww it’s so cute that you think things will actually change with the change in government”. It is still the same project that my intern and I have been working on. It still has the same purposes, ideas and findings. We just have to wrap it up in different language, because apparently, that’s value for money. Retch.

Other crimes and punishment themes that I meant to expand on. I still need a spanking. Wait, what’s the line between want and need these days, in this post 9/11 world? And when will Austrians find Nazi jokes funny?

On that note, I spent the day working from home on Wednesday because I wanted to concentrate on doing some serious writing on case studies instead of being distracted by wiki issues, which meant that I was in theory about to watch the Inauguration, but without Sky there were too many people talking on TV3 so I went back to sleep and read Gawker media commentary on it later and cried. Then I went to Lisa’s to watch Skins 2 and hang, and in the car on the drive home I cried when Roxette played on the radio, and then I cried in joy watching The Daily Show coverage, not least because of all the joy that was so clear in them, not just because it was change that they could believe in, but it was challenging comedically too to capture those moments that were so amazing but to still be all Daily Show all up on them.

Kowhai says that she wishes she could be as in touch with my emotions as I am, but this is me with total motherfucking eat a bag of dicks PMS and I feel like the world is ending, and I want to eat all the bread in the world and oh my fucking god, could I just start bleeding already please? Please? Tonight I was bitching furiously to Good Tom and Good Anita (did we decide to call her that?) about my period’s control over my body and how like, nine years ago KateB told me to have a keep-a-nigga baby when Ass was doing the very long drawn-out breaking off, and I was like “OMG TERRIBLE” but I think there are too many signs of an imminent period (not to mention the whole thing where I’m probably infertile) to think that there was something amiss, especially since my last period was two weeks long.

I was going to go home and get drunk and cry by myself after work today, but I needed to buy a new cellphone charger cos mine has died, and also potentially a new remote control for the lounge dvd player cos that bitch is a fucking bitch, but then there was TCD store open which I’ve never seen before and it was so pretty and shiny, and there was this sexyass dress, and then on the other side of the shop it was available in purple, and I didn’t think it was right and then I thought “what about if I had a belt?” and I thought “what would Joan Holloway do?” and just as the shop assistant was asking me if i wanted help, Good Tom rang to see where I was at, and I asked him if I should buy the dress, and he said “does it make you look ugly?” and I said “no” so he told me to buy it, and the shop lady complimented me In on my whole outfit with it, so I bought it. And now I am poor. #whitewhine. In fact, I’m feeling like an exceptionally poor mother right now, because we’re out of cat biscuits, which means I’ve been giving Sebby extra wet meat, which of course he loves. Also that last expression sounds so eww.

Also, there’s things and there’s stuff, of course, and historians – or rather me reading this two year from now will go “what history? what stuff?” but for now I will nod smuggly. Mostly, being pre-period makes me totally feel like there’s the end of the world arriving, and I know that it’s not, but it’s like you try playing “So here we are” as loud as possible by Bloc Party and put your head down on your desk and see if you don’t cry. I’m considering creating a fictional list like the FCC fictionally assembled after 9/11 of songs that are all no-gos. Pretty much the only things I am left with is hip hop. I know that all things considered, that was as best and as good as it could be. But like still, I’d rather be in Samoa eating snails right now, if you know what I mean.

I spent all of last week at home hiding out. There were occasional distractions – Amy came over on the Monday night for prettyprettypretty stuff, and I made Lisa dinner on Wednesday, but apart from that there were only a couple of conversations with Smoo and George. I kept my phone switched off during the day so work couldn’t call me, and on Friday I sent an email to my boss that said in part:

suppose I’ve been hoping a little bit that by going AWOL I would just get fired, and then I wouldn’t have to own up to all my failures. I haven’t been at work this week because the thought of coming in just absolutely petrifies me. I physically cannot get out of bed and leave the house because of my fear of all the work that I should have done by now that I haven’t, and the thought of having conversations about it, and why I haven’t done it, and how I am not meeting your expectations absolutely terrifies me. That’s why I’ve left my cellphone switched off, which is a total copout for someone who used to pride herself on her communication skills. I think I need to resign, I am not the person that you thought you hired, and I cannot do the work that I have been hired to do. I know that I’m in a down space right now that I will climb out of, but I just don’t see how I will get any better at doing what is expected of me at the *.

As the ever-perceptive Smoo said, perhaps it was a cry for help. She sent me back a really really nice, really really supportive email, which made me cry, which was kind of nice too, because I’ve felt more numb than I should be feeling, and have been questioning whether or not I should be on 40mg, or if it’s actually too strong. But anyways, I cried, I washed my face, I blowdried my hair, I fought off the metallic taste of rising panic, and I headed out to Deb and Mike‘s Emancipation Party.

First up though was dinner at Arashi with Robyn and Shirley and Tom, who bought along really really nice champagne to celebrate, even though I didn’t want to talk about resigning, or not resigning, or whatever it is that’s going to happen now, which will involve a lot of work and conversation and bravery and all that sort of stuff. So instead, here’s photos of them at dinner.

Then we headed up to Hawthorn early to secure the big corner table. I love Hawthorn so much. The bartenders are so charming, and make such good zombies. We laughed a tremendous amount at Shirley saying one was cute when he was standing right behind her. We’re grownups that way. I held court at the big table, drinking more zombies and more bottles of wine. Having not talked to anyone in so long, and after essentially sitting in my own filth all week (well, I showered, but then I put Pjs back on) it felt insanely great to be out of the house again. I could talk and bullshit all I wanted to.

And yes, I got rather drunk, and in fact told the third person ever that I loved them, ((EDIT: actually the fourth. If I was Good Tom, I’d be quite insulted at how often I got left out of the count, but then again he’s probably just relieved!) via text message that I don’t remember sending, and which also quite frankly isn’t true, or rather as I texted the next day, I love them, but I don’t love them. I’m just going to miss them a fuckload. I also invented a new insult in the Twitterverse - “Asscunt”. I hope it’s going to take off. Yes, I drank far more than is healthy, but oh holy crap did I need a huge blow-out and some rants and raves. I’m having trouble having responsibility for the most basic parts of my life (I need a wife) so it totally makes sense to go out and be totally irresponsible, right?

A story from the night that has nothing to do with me but which was incredibly hilarious unfolded in front of me and Robyn. We noticed this guy sitting at the end of the bar looking around a lot and staring at us, and we thought he was Sam Farrow so we yelled out his name but he didn’t look, so we decided that there was something else seedy going on with him. Later a guy in a white pinstriped shirt came in with a girl in red, and the girl in red started talking to Sam-Lite. Next time we looked up, Sam-Lite was gone, and Red Girl was talking to some other random. I was ordering more wine at that stage, and so I got to overheard Pinstripe at the other end of the bar sending down drinks to Red Girl and Random. Then later, Pinstripe found himself a new friend in the form of a girl in a floral dress, who was there with Leather Jacket. In fact, Floral found herself between the two of them, with hungry suburban manhands all over her.

You can’t see Pinstripe’s roaming hands in those photos, but believe me, they were there. Icck. Keep it in the Hutt, please. Small bars are not good places for discretion.

And yes, anyway. Have I mentioned how much TV I’ve been watching? Carnivale (love it so much, sad it’s all gone now), Green Wing, Strangers with Candy, This Life, and more, I’m sure. I’m pretty sure I can’t remember how to stand up anymore, but I will need to find out tomorrow when I go into work. Oh also I have to pash 20 people before next Tuesday when I turn 28. Volunteers please? And my birthday dinner is on Saturday and we’re going to Karaoke afterwards, you should come along if you like that sort of thing. And um, I think that’s it for the night. It’s too cold to have my arms out from under my duvet any longer.

The idea that I will push you away from me long before you will even have a chance to start to dislike and then reject me is not a new one. I remember way back in the olden days, like ’02/03, talking to (Good)*Tom who assured me that there was nothing I could ever do that would ever make him move away from me. I asked if sleeping with his brother would do the trick, and he said it wouldn’t. Maybe I should have said his sister. Hi Mary. Heh.

Anyways, my narrative thread, my reason for getting out of my nice warm bed to go and find my computer (my new eeePC, so so so cute) wasn’t to talk about Tom at all. I think my thread was supposed to start with how I was texting Tingle “If you want to make your life less complicated, stop replying to drunkass random dumbasses who aren’t your girlfriend” and perhaps try to explain about how we (you and I, my dear reader) got to this stage in my storytelling, but I’m not entirely convinced that it will work out that way. So perhaps I could make a bulleted list of what’s what?

Computer says No. Computer says numbered list instead, and who am I to argue? I should mention that I am now running Linux. OH HELL YES. Also, thanks to the lovely Heather, Hubris is now running on Drupal. Sing out if you have any problems with it as such.

Today was The Food Show. As such, I had long ago booked the day off work. Karen and I were followed around by Anji and Bambi, and generally really good time was had, eating so many things and drinking many many things, but then we had somewhat of a difference of opinion which didn’t end well, and consequently I ended up behaving like a brat as mentioned in paragraph two. Which we have already discussed, and I should point out that yes, I do take full responsibility for my own actions. I just find it hard to continue to have to be responsible for other people too.

In other websites news, www.prettyprettypretty.com and the Wellingtonista are both going really well. I am so stoked that Amy and I are maintaining momentum in keeping our site going. We’ve also welcomed Mrs. Bizgirl into our fold. and Monday nights are full of good-smelling prettiness as a consequence.

Yesterday my laptop power supply died, so I went to buy a new one, but at DSE they said that they didn’t have the right one and weren’t likely to get it in ever so I decided to fork out and get this ultra portable mini computer instead. It’s like the nokia 1100 of laptops, super small and light and convenient, and has all the functions you need and some you didn’t realise you wanted (webcam is the new torch) but is all cheap and stuff. Plus, like I said. LINUX. Penguins are so hot right now. But not as hot as Sebastian.

As I twittered earlier this week, all felicousnessly, on Saturday my hymen grows back. Well, maybe Bart’s birthday party was at the end of May last year so that I might have a couple more weeks, but there are no prospects at all. As I said to a lady friend recently “I really want some dicking but I keep on kissing girls”. I am lame. And also running out of battery.

And now I am back, and it is Saturday and I am waiting for my sheets to finish washing before I go to the supermarket, so I have time now to tell you about how my counsellor told me to build a raft of socks. Heh. She advised me to buy more socks so that my mornings aren’t thrown by a lack of clean laundry. It’s as frustrating as all fuck that my life has come down to this, that I need a counsellor to tell me to do things that ‘normal’ people just manage to do at all times. I hate when I fail to function properly. But yes, I will buy more socks. I also was going to listen to her advice about not contacting people again, but then I didn’t, but now I have come across as psycho enough that it won’t be an issue anymore, so it turns out that maybe reckless self-sabotage can be the best thing a person can do for themselves.

* There is Good Tom because his last name starts with a G, and Bad Tom whose name starts with a B, but as to whether or not their names are deserved, I am constantly divided.